Urbana post, first pressing

I've updated the postings on Freedom and soon on the first question concerning the Gospel at the end of those posts, check them out.

Urbana is complete. I went with the goal of being a sponge: sucking in and absorbing to the point of saturation only to return and squeeze out to the last drop that which I took in. These are the initial rivulets and oozes leaking out with just the slightest pressure.

Worship: Never before have I truly seen God worshiped as The King. Perhaps it was seeing 22,000 people standing before God and praising Him with all their might. Perhaps it was diversity within crowd, consisting of over 140 nations, all races, so many different ethnicities and cultures. Perhaps the music itself, led by a multicultural and racial team, in who knows how many languages: Spanish, Korean, French, Chinese (don't know whether Mandrin or Cantonese), Creole, and English. God is the King of all nations! How wonderful and proper it is for all of us to gather and praise Him in so many ways. We bring our best for the King, we sing, dance, clap to our utmost to bring Him joy and honor and praise due Him! Who else could bring all these distant elements together? Sound the Latin trumpet, beat the African drum, strum the American chords, sing the Asian verses, for He is our King!

Community: I totally forgot how much I missed this. Having roommates, what a cool concept! Eating with people and meeting people and being part of a mob of thousands has an energy all its own. The ability to share together, laugh together, pray together, process together, all of it, awesome. I know I definitely need to seek this while I'm here since it is such a good thing, and great way to really keep focused on a God much bigger than that punk kid in the mirror.

Ephesians: I might have said it on this blog, but I have had a very difficult time understanding the epistles of Paul. He goes on and on about the most obscure point in a round about manner and then comes out with ridiculously bold and seemingly universal statements that are nigh impossible to deal with.

Praise God this book made sense this time. We studied half of the book in manuscript (the most in depth and revealing way to study scripture that I know of.) in our slum track group of who knows how many hundreds. We broke in groups of three to observe, ask questions, discuss, and find applications. All of which was shared in the whole group.

The other half was preached/taught by Ajith Fernando, an amazing Sri Lankan. He had the amazing ability to preach with strength and conviction on a point, but do it in a joyous manner that made you want to agree and join without feeling the burden of a duty. I think I've heard very few preachers be able to walk this line. Either all is fluff and brings no conviction to action, or all is heavy and brings the weight of work without a foundation of love. He set an true example for me to follow in writing these updates and in the way I share the love, along with the desires and commandments of God with others.

As for the actual book itself and the lessons learned from it:

Verticality of God.

Power of God.

Freedom from and witness to Powers and Principalities

Love in Church leads to knowing gihugic love of God.

Unity

I'll explain these at some point but they are here as subject headings for now. (this is just a brain dump exercise for me, digging deeper will come later, promise)

American Dream: At some point right before I left, I somehow concluded what my "perfect" mission would look like: Live incarnationaly among the poor, work with the people there during the day on some sort of productive project (ie building a house, or church or digging a hole or farming or something), coming home at the end of the day and in the evening and leading bible studies or just hanging out with the folks there and wake up and do it again. I only told this plan to two different missions agencies, 1) Chris at SIM who seemed pretty supportive of such a vague idea and 2) Kevin Walton of Servant Partners. Kevin told me exactly what I needed to hear. I had a very American view of the perfect missionary life. The people I would be going to live with in a slum are ok with sitting around for hours upon hours doing nothing "productive". The first and very important role of a missionary is that of a learner. Most agencies have their long termers spend a year doing absolutely no ministry, but rather learning the language and the culture. All ideas of usefulness and productivity as I understand them gotta be chucked out of the window. All ideas of becoming Christ's disciple (student) need to be brought in.

Challenged by Weeping: A man in Calcutta. We were told one man's experience of visiting Calcutta and visiting this man. I can't remember his name nor the other's, so I can only refer to them as the American, and the Indian. The American met the Indian years ago during a missions trip. The Indian was married and had a beautiful young daughter. The Indian lived in a slum. Upon the next yearly visit of the American, he found his friend had contracted TB. He lost his job, he could not work as a laborer since his body could not produce the strength needed in its diseased state. His wife took their daughter and left since he was now a liability. The American left and returned, some years later, not wanting to find his friend, who he assumed was likely dead. He did find him; thin, skeletally thin. His wife and daughter were there too. This would be their last time talking. The American shared with us his anguish over this. What if he had adopted the daughter, to save her from a very likely life of prostitution, what if he had not gotten TB, what could he do? He was undone.

As were most in the room. Staring into the black eyes of this Indian man, framed by a skull painted with brown skin, why should this man starve to death? There is so much food in the world, this is completely inexcusable. All the economic theories, all the fishing anecdotes, all the wisdom, bought this man nothing.

Scott called for a time of weeping, a time of release. We were all in the slum track and had seen and heard about the realities in the slums, now was the time to deal with it. I had never been struck down like I was with this past story. It was death pure and simple and it did not need to exist. I couldn't cry, but I felt my gut twisted and shaken. My heart brought forth no tears, but something deep was very off.

I had a difficult time with the weeping. I've grown up in a very conservative background and so any sort of emotion, crying out, or anything that would sound like tounges is completely contrary to all I've known. Hearing the wails and sobs in that room immediately put me on guard. Rather I should say it put my mind and logic on guard. Was this right to wail out loud? Was this right to cry? Was this right that this man is starving to death and is probably already dead? I just sat in a confused state: mind rationalizing, gut foundationaly unsettled, heart completely silent.

I don't know what to make of that experience. I was shaken for the whole day, I felt almost guilty afterwards that I could not or would not let myself be moved in the same way as so many in that room. At the same time, I have not been challenged in such a way in a very long time. I know God is a good Father that disciplines the children that He loves so that they might grow up in Him. I was also reminded of the last half of Deuteronomy 28. That man sick and starving is nothing new to God. I don't think He's punishing him at all, but God does not have His reality blown apart by it either.

But does God weep for him?

I am thankful for that experience where God got out and rattled my cage, but I honestly don't know how I would react if it happens again. But I do know this, blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh. Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep.

Question: How important is it to be right? I started this whole recent set of posts with the goal of being right. I wanted to know the right way to pursue Jesus. Yet at Urbana, I was challenged in my own cultural understanding of my perfect mission as stated above. I was also hit by the testimony of Father Ben Beltran. I went to his seminar concerning the smoky mountain dump in Manila. He was a student of theology in Rome for a while. He learned innumerable languages and developed a fond taste for white wine. He was writing his theology out for a number of years till he finished with a total sum of 806 pages. Quite an accomplishment. Life was good, but now after completing his 806 page work, he heard God ask him, "how much of that can you explain to your mother?" He realized this work was a waste and that he was incredibly empty. He pursued something to fill this void in his spirit and theology had failed to do. He eventually reached Smoky mountain, a 20 hectar 100 ton dump home to 25,000 (he may have meant 2,500). He found that the people there were more pious than he, they prayed more, they knew God better. He proceeded to say that he had to drop all of his theological ways and become a learner from these poor. He said in the western point of view, "You think when you have right words, you have truth." That completely sums up my search for definitions and categories. Instead of preconceived notions and methods, he said we need to learn how the poor think. The human mind works in stories, not theologies. This guy was a serious quote machine and I'll finish with one more: "Beware of faith that resides in the mind alone."

Coming Revolution: Good, Bad, or Ugly? I'm going light on this since I want to get this post up before I move from the initial response setting. But understand that in many different levels, the church is changing. In some ways, I think its about time, ie the shift of the our center away from the west and to the 2/3rds world, concern for following Jesus in the same way as He called His followers, the focus on community away from individualism. But at the same time, some changes are set so far over as to invalidate the change they wish to make. The debate over the definition of the gospel, the conflict between post moderns and moderns in examining the emergent church, should the church only preach the gospel with out physical and social implications or should the church love and care for people without ever making it a priority to share about the salvation offered through Christ. There are many different changes happening and I don't think they are all related so that a neat and tidy line can be drawn between two sides. And that is a good thing. We need to stop rebelling and refuting each other in ways that the other refuses to recognize (ie only using logic against post modernism and only using vague terms against modernism). We need to drop our cultural bickerings and instead seek the Lord with all of hearts, strength, and minds. I know God is not pleased by division, but He also wants us to not be deceived either. As a body, we need to be willing to freely speak the truth in love, listen to each other, learn, seek the Lord and be willing to repent. Jesus was full of grace and truth, and as His body we all need to be full of both as well.


Alright, this is probably the most scattered post in a while, but so be it. Logic and clear flowing ideas aren't everything. I hope this gives a brief look into some of the more challenging and uplifting facets of Urbana for those that couldn't make it, and reminders and different perspectives for those there too.